


With Friends Like These

by the_random_writer



Category: Cut & Run - Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Genre: Bad Flirting, Friendship, Gen, Marriage, Moving On, Personal Growth, Snark, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 21:17:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11906385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_random_writer/pseuds/the_random_writer
Summary: New Orleans taught Ty how to be a better and more honest person. He doesn't always get it right, but unlike a certain former 'friend', at least he's trying.





	With Friends Like These

As he yanked up the zip on his coat, Ty looked to his other half. "Sure you don't want to join us?" he asked. "We could go for coffee instead of beer."

Sprawled along the living room couch, Zane shook his head to decline. "Not a fucking chance," he declared. "Don't tell him I said this, but I think I'd rather go for drinks with Hitler instead."

Ty snickered and huffed at the same time. "Know what you mean," he muttered, turning his collar the right way out. "Was thinking Osama bin Laden myself." He leaned out to grab his iPhone, wallet and keys. "Don't imagine we'll have much to discuss, so I shouldn't be more than a couple of hours. And I'm gonna stay away from the beer."

"I don't mind if you want to have one," Zane advised. "Just don't come home reeking of it."

Ty smiled. "Thanks, babe, but I think he'll be much easier to deal with if I stay completely sober," he said. "Less of a risk of him winding me up into an alcoholic rage."

"There is that, yeah."

"Last chance, Lone Star. Sure you want to stay home for the night?"

Zane nodded and made a shooing motion with his hand. "Absolutely. Get the hell out of here, give me a couple of hours alone with my book."

"I'll tell him you said 'hi'," Ty hollered back as he strode out the door.

***************

Ty scanned the bar, searching for the man he'd (somewhat reluctantly) come to meet. He finally found him, sitting behind a four-person table over near the emergency door, quietly nursing a half-empty pint of beer.

The other man smiled as he noticed Ty's approach. But it wasn't his usual, smarmy, shit-stirring smile, so even from fifty feet away, Ty could tell his former colleague was up to no good. He mentally groaned. So much for a quiet, relaxing couple of hours catching up with an old friend. Although, whenever this man's name was invoked, 'friend' wasn't always the word that immediately sprang to mind.

"Hello, Beaumont," Liam Bell casually said.

Ty glared. "Don't call me that." He pulled out one of the other seats, glad at least that Bell had selected a table where neither of them had to sit with their back to the room. He might only be running a bookstore now and married with a couple of cats, instead of hunting for serial killers and cartel assassins, but old habits died hard.

Liam waved a hand to catch the server's attention. She trotted over, young, blonde and eager to please, then graced them with a toothy grin.

"What can I get for you?" she said to Ty.

"Doctor Pepper with ice, please," he politely replied.

His order submitted, the waitress nodded and scooted away.

"Don't tell me your other half won't let you have a sodding beer?" Liam complained, obviously outraged at the thought.

Ty shook his head. "Nothing to do with Zane. Just because we're in a bar doesn't mean I need to drink."

"Well, well, well. Aren't you Mister Mature and Responsible today?"

"One of us has to be," Ty retorted. "And based on past experience, it sure as shit won't ever be you."

Liam huffed rolled his eyes. "Don't take this the wrong way, Tyler, but I think I liked you more before you put that ring on your finger."

 _"Do_ take this the wrong way, Liam, but I _know_ I liked you more when everybody thought you were dead."

"Touché," Liam murmured, flashing him a malevolent smile.

They paused as the server returned with Ty's drink. "You guys looking for something to eat?" she asked with a hoping-for-a-bigger-tip smile.

"No thanks, darlin'," Ty said before Liam could give another reply. He'd eaten before he left the house. "Drinks are all we need for now."

She nodded, smiled and retreated again.

"So how _is_ the delectable Mister Garrett?" Liam breezily asked.

"He's fine," was all Ty said.

"He didn't want to join us tonight? My offer was open to him as well."

Ty pulled a mock-regretful frown. "He tried to make it, he _really_ did, but he had to stay home to wash the towels and duvet covers instead. _Super_ important task. Hasn't done it now for a couple of months."

Liam narrowed his eyes. "You could just say he didn't want to see me."

"He didn't want to see you," Ty dutifully droned.

"See how easy it was to just tell me the truth? Although, to be fair, you haven't exactly had a lot of practice, have you?"

Clamping his mouth around the straw, Ty took a long sip of his drink. In a very calm and rational voice he asked, "What do you want, Liam?"

"What makes you think I want anything? Can't two old friends just meet up for a chinwag over a couple of pints?"

"They can, yes. But after what happened in New Orleans, I'm not sure I think of you as a friend."

Liam tutted and shook his head. "You really need to let go of that suspicious nature of yours. It's a _frightfully_ ugly thing."

"My suspicious nature is why I'm sitting here tonight instead of lying six feet under in Arlington, keeping the grave next to Eli busy."

The Englishman's expression softened. "Eli, yes, now he was a _lovely_ chap. Made the best salsa I've ever tasted. Was spicy as fuck, though, so not really sure my arse would agree." He swirled his beer around in his glass, thinning out what was left of the head. "Bloody shame what happened to him. Glad you nailed the fucker that did it."

"Almost six years ago now," Ty murmured, thinking back to the Tri-State case.

"Seems like yesterday I spoke to him last."

Ty nodded. "It does, yeah." He used his straw to churn up his ice. "But we're not here to reminisce about the good old days on tour with the team. So why don't you cut to the chase and tell me why the fuck you called me?"

For once, instead of teasing, prevaricating or mocking, Liam did exactly as he was told. "I need your help," he said.

Ty sighed and glanced at the door, wishing he could disappear through it. "What kind of help are we talking about? Because if it's the money kind or the 'trying to evade the long arm of the law' kind, I'm not sure I have any to spare."

"Not that kind of help, no."

Ty simply raised his brows.

"I need a backup man for a job."

The brows shot up even higher. "And you came to _me?"_

"I did, yes."

"After everything that's happened between us, everything you said and did, you want me to back you up on a job? Are you fucking nuts?" Ty could feel his anger mounting. Liam's cryptic voicemail message had made him worry something was wrong and all the asshole actually needed was someone to keep an eye on his six while he knocked over a bank? Or infiltrated some terrorist cell? Or kidnapped some rich businessman's virginal daughter? Or whatever the hell it was he did to earn his living now? He rose from his seat. "I think we're done."

Before he could leave, Liam's hand grabbed him firmly around the wrist. "Hear me out. Twenty seconds. That's all I need."

Ty paused, thinking his options over, then grudgingly reclaimed his seat. "Twenty seconds. Start talking."

Bell took the order to heart. "Easy and safe, one hour's work, equipment supplied, transport included, ten grand in unmarked bills."

Ty snorted. "When you're in our line of work, there's no such thing as easy and safe."

"There is this time. You'll be well away from the front line. I'll be the only one on the ground."

"What would you need me to do?"

"Sit on a rooftop a few hundred metres away with a pair of binoculars and a mic, tell me what's going on."

Ty's brows shot up again. "You only need me to be a spotter?" he asked, not quite believing what Liam was saying. "You don't need me to neutralize any enemy assets?"

Such wonderful euphemisms they had in their trade.

Liam nodded. "Watch and report, that's all I need. Be the easiest ten you've ever made."

Ty leaned back in his chair. It sounded simple, but if there was one (painful) lesson he'd long since learned, it was that nothing was simple when Liam Bell was involved. The man didn't even have to be present; he could royally fuck up a situation just by having someone mention his name. "If it's so fucking easy, why on earth are you coming to me?"

"Because I need someone I can really rely on. Your name was at the top of my list."

Ty grunted and rolled his eyes. Actions that didn't escape his former lover's attention.

"Why the hell are you rolling your eyes?" the ex-SAS man wanted to know.

"Because you're lying out of your goddamn ass." And he should know. As Liam had kindly pointed out, he hadn't always been very good at telling the God's honest truth himself.

"So you think your name's _not_ at the top of my list?"

"I _know_ my name's not at the top of your list." Ty paused to take a swig of his drink, sucking in a couple of ice cubes to crunch. "You've worked with everyone from the _Jegertroppen_ to the _Sayeret Matkal_. You must know more ex-special forces guys than I've had blow jobs and hand jobs added together. You really expect me to believe I'm the guy you would come to first?"

"I do, yes." Liam actually sounded offended now.

Ty wasn't remotely convinced. "Me? The ex-Recon guy with PTSD, OCD, a crappy knee and the beginnings of an arthritic right hand? The guy who got out of the business to go run a bookstore with his middle-aged husband and cats instead?"

"The job's not about what you can or can't physically do. I need someone I can trust."

"Since when have you trusted me?"

"I've always trusted you, Beaumont," Liam replied in the softest possible voice. "With far more important things than my life."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Sorry to disappoint you, man, but the feeling's not really mutual these days. I'm not interested. I don't want the job."

Liam drew his brows together, whether in anger or shock, Ty couldn't tell.

"What if I pay you twenty grand?" the Englishman counter-proposed, not ready to surrender yet. "Would you take the job then?"

Ty shook his head to decline. "And I still wouldn't take it even if you offered me thirty. Or fifty. Or a hundred. I'm not interested, no matter the size of the cheque."

"You're serious, aren't you? You're _actually_ out of the business for good? You're not just using your husband, bookstore and cats as a cover?"

"Yes, I am, and no, I'm not," Ty very firmly said. He wasn't proud of telling another lie, but Liam didn't need to know about his and Zane's little arrangement with the CIA. He switched to a slightly friendlier tone. "Give one of your other contacts a call. I'm flattered you asked, but I'm on the bench by my own choice, and I'm never gonna want back in the game."

Liam rested his elbows on the table, then leaned his head forward, massaging his temples and running his fingers through his hair. From the thunderous look on his face, he wasn't taking the answer well.

"The fuck is the problem?" Ty complained. "I only said I didn't want in on the job. The look on your face, you'd think I'd just told you somebody died."

"The problem is that _none_ of you want in on the job," Liam explained.

"What?"

The Englishman paused to finish his beer. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, let out a quiet belch and said, "None of my contacts want the work."

"Really?"

"Really."

Ty shrugged. "Must know it's a shittier job than you're letting on."

"It's not that."

"Then what's the fucking problem?"

Liam sighed, raised his glass and waved it around until he caught their server's attention, letting her know he wanted another. She nodded, smiled and trotted back to the bar. "It's all this turning forty crap."

"The hell are you talking about?"

"Most of my contacts are pretty much the same age as me, yeah? A few outliers here and there, but most of them are only a year or two older or younger."

Ty nodded. "You all came up through your respective services at more or less the same time, so yeah, that kinda makes sense."

"Which means they're all experiencing the same utterly horrifying event in more or less the same span of time."

"Which utterly horrifying event's that?"

The waitress arrived with Liam's pint. He took it from her with a smile, but his body language made it clear he didn't want her to hang around. She smiled back and sensibly beat a hasty retreat.

"Hitting the big four-oh," Liam explained.

"Right," Ty acknowledged, catching on to what Liam was saying. "So you think all these battle-hardened, ex-special forces guys are turning forty, having a mid-life crisis and realizing they want to do something better with their time than lie on a roof in the pissing rain with a sniper rifle and some night-vision goggles?"

"That's exactly what I think."

"And it annoys you."

"Course it fucking annoys me," Liam retorted. "It's supposed to be 'Who Dares Wins' not 'Who Walks The Dog And Empties The Bins'."

Ty shrugged. "People change. Get older and wiser, start to question what they're doing with their lives, think about what they really want." But even that explanation didn't account for the lack of response. Some people changed, but others absolutely didn't. There was more to this problem than Liam was letting on. "You sure you called everyone you know? You didn't get to the end of the A's and accidentally skip straight to the start of the Z's?"

"Let's go through my list of contacts, shall we?" Liam proposed, pulling a battered notebook out of his jacket pocket.

Ty almost laughed. "You _actually_ have a little black book?"

"Course I fucking do. How else am I supposed to keep track of all the bloody people I've met?"

"Don't you just store all their numbers in your phone?"

"Yeah, but what if I have to throw my phone away? Or it gets damaged in a fight? Or if the only way to escape from someone is to jump into a bloody lake?"

"Okay, okay, keep your panties on, I get the point."

Liam briefly glowered at him, then started checking the pages of names. "This guy's dead. Total nutter, so not surprised. This one's serving a life sentence for murder. Also a total nutter, so also not surprised. This one found God and became a priest." The scanning, pointing and page turning continued. "Dead. Dead. Runs a vegan café in Inverness. Joined a religious cult. Dead. Paralyzed from the waist down." He held up the book to tap on a particular page. "There's your contact information. Do you want me to mark you down as Retired?" he asked.

"I want you to rip out the whole fucking page."

Liam ignored his request. "Dead. Jail. Had a sex change and became a woman, calls himself Alexandra now. Working security at a casino in Vegas. Living off the grid in Alaska. In rehab until the end of the year." He snickered slightly. "Running for political office."

The next entry made him grunt in disgust. "Don't get me started on _this_ guy," he said. "One of the best I've ever worked with, knew everyone who was anyone in the Russian sphere, great contact to have, until he went and smashed himself into a tunnel wall."

"That happens."

"Yeah, except it turns out the arsehole's not even dead! Just found out he's alive and well, living fifty miles from here and working for the CIA."

Ty furrowed his brows. Something about that sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite remember why. "You thought about giving the guy a call?"

"Did more than just think about it."

"And?"

Liam snorted. "And not only is he a fully paid-up Company man, the silly bugger went and got married and bred himself a couple of sprogs. Says he can't help because he doesn't want to piss off the wife."

"That happens as well." The getting married part, at least. He and Zane hadn't acquired or created a couple of kids, unless Jiminy and Cricket counted.

"Fucking ridiculous business," Liam complained. "Like the whole fucking world went on vacation to learn yoga and get in touch with its feminine side."

Ty shrugged. He preferred Pilates, himself. "That can't be everyone, though. There's gotta be forty or fifty names in that book, and I can see from here there are plenty of entries that don't have a red line drawn through them."

"It's not everyone, no. There are a few other people left."

"So why haven't you gone to one of those other people instead?"

Liam heaved a surly sigh and stared into his pint of beer.

"Earth to Liam," Ty grouchily said, snapping his fingers in front of the other man's face.

"They won't work with me," Bell eventually muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"They either hung up on me, or told me they would kill me if I ever called them again."

"Really?"

"Really."

Ty leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest. "Can't say I'm very surprised. In their shoes, I might've been tempted to do the same thing." Although, he didn't know which of the two responses he liked the most.

Liam smiled, but Ty could see there wasn't much warmth or humour behind it. "I think you just hurt my feelings," his former colleague and lover said.

"That assumes you have any feelings to hurt."

"You never doubted my feelings back when you were fucking me senseless every night."

"Long time ago." Fourteen years, to be precise. So long ago, it might as well have been a previous life. "Things change."

"You really don't think of me as a friend?"

"I try not to think about you at all."

"And you don't trust me?"

Ty shook his head. "Not even to look after my cats."

"I love cats," Liam protested.

"I know you do," Ty replied, thinking back on how Bell had adopted and cared for a bunch of kittens they'd found on the base. "Doesn't matter. Still wouldn't let you anywhere near them."

"You think I would hurt them," Liam said.

"No, but I worry you would use them to get back at me. Or even worse, to get back at Zane."

"I thought Zane didn't like the cats."

"He's not as fond of them as I am, but that doesn't mean he's ever gonna let anyone do anything bad to our boys."

Liam rolled his eyes. "Never thought I'd see the day when Tyler Grady used those words to talk about his bloody pets instead of a company full of arse-kicking, badass marines."

"It's like I said," Ty replied. "Things change." He stood up, drained his glass and gently set it back down on the table.

"You're leaving?" Liam asked.

Ty nodded, took out his wallet and pulled out a twenty-dollar note. "I’m going home to sit on the couch with Zane." He dropped the twenty on the table, more than happy to pay for Bell's drinks. "Play with my cats, watch the next episode of _Downton Abbey_ , maybe open a bag of chips. You know, the kind of stuff normal people do."

"I wouldn't know what normal was if it jumped up and bit me on the arse," Liam said in a disapproving tone.

Ty shrugged. "Your loss."

"I'm disappointed in you, Beaumont. You used to be a man I really wanted to know."

"Yeah, but the man you really wanted to know isn't a man I'm now willing to be."

"Marriage has made you soft."

Ty sneered. "Not that Zane's ever complained."

"And God forbid your beloved husband should _ever_ have a reason to complain."

"That's pretty much how I see it, yeah." He stood up and stepped away from his chair. There was one final thing he wanted to say. "I meant what I said about being off the bench, so don't _ever_ call me with something like this again."

Liam sighed, glared and reluctantly nodded his head.

"But if you want a friend, a real, genuine, _actual_ friend, someone to talk to from time to time over a burger and beer, I could _maybe_ just about manage that. But you gotta leave all your bullshit and lies behind. I learned the hard way back in New Orleans that lying drives your friends away. You keep doing it with me, I'm gonna follow Nick and Zane's example and put you on my 'dead to me' list. And once I add your name to that list, it's gonna take a goddamn miracle before I remove it. You understand?"

Liam smiled, but not in a way that reached his eyes. "Let's just say I'll take your advice under consideration."

"You do that."

"Go home, Tyler. Go sit on the couch with your husband and your bloody cats. Go be all boring and soft, and leave the difficult, dangerous work to me."

***************

Back at the house, Zane hadn't gone far. He was still lying along the couch with his hardback book propped up on his chest, a bowl of M&Ms on his stomach and Jiminy nestled between his shins. He looked up as Ty stepped through the door. "That was quick," he remarked, glancing at the clock on the wall. "Didn't expect you home for another hour."

Ty shrugged as he slipped out of his coat. "Was like I said. We didn't have a lot to discuss."

"So what did Beelzebub want?" Zane asked in a slightly surly tone.

"Nothing much," Ty truthfully said. "He's looking for someone to back him up on a job, thought I might be interested in helping him out."

Zane's eyebrows shot up into his bangs. "I hope you told him to take a hike."

Ty nodded. "And to never, _ever_ ask me again."

"How'd he take it?"

"Not very well. Thinks I've gone completely soft."

"Not that I've ever noticed," the Texan murmured with a grin.

"That's pretty much what I told him as well."

Ty wandered over to throw himself into the leather recliner. He sighed, frowned and drummed his fingers on the end of the arms.

Zane examined him over the top of his book. "If you're hungry, there's some leftover pizza in the fridge. Or if you ask me nicely, I'll make you one of my grilled cheese specials."

As tempting as the offer was, Ty shook his head. "Not really hungry." He looked at his watch again. "Was actually thinking I might go for a run."

"Feeling the need to burn off some steam?"

"Something like that, yeah."

"A good, hard run should do the job nicely."

Ty made an agreeing sound, then pushed up out of the feline-scarred seat and strode to the cupboard under the stairs, looking for his Nike runners.

"Something else might do an even better job," Zane added in an innocently informative tone.

Still digging around in the cupboard, Ty shook his head and grinned. "Oh, yeah? And what's that?" he asked, as if he didn't already know. It was one of the things he loved about Zane almost as much as the terrible puns—his chat-up lines and seduction techniques were sometimes as subtle as a brick to the balls.

"This book's not really working for me," Zane replied, gently shutting the cover over. "So how about you take me upstairs and show me _exactly_ how soft you haven't become?"


End file.
